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Venezuela foils staged attack by right-wing opposition at Colombian border


teleSUR
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 16:01 UTC
venezuelan armed vehicles at colombian border
© teleSUR
Venezuelan armed vehicles are seen at the Venezuelan-Colombian border after the staged attack by right-wing elements.

teleSUR correspondent in Venezuela said Venezuelan immigration Police were securing the border point and that members of the Venezuelan army were deployed at the scene.

A group of right-wing terrorists Saturday took over multiple armored vehicles that belong to the Venezuelan armed forces and rammed into border barriers at the Venezuelan-Colombian border in a staged operation ordered by right-wing opposition members in Colombia.

According to teleSUR reporters at the scene, armored vehicles of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) rammed into the Venezuelan security barrier installed in the Simon Bolivar international bridge and then three infiltrated terrorists fled to Colombia where they were received by two leaders of the Venezuelan far right.

Comment: Colombia is proving quite useful to the Empire in its latest regime change op:

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Target

Domino effect: Pompeo vows US will help uproot 'authoritarianism' in Nicaragua and Cuba


RT
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 15:26 UTC
Mike Pompeo
© Reuters / Kacper Pempel
The United States will help the people of Nicaragua and Cuba to resist "non-democratic regimes" in their countries, Mike Pompeo has said. His comments come as Washington steps up calls for a new government in Venezuela.

The secretary of state responded in the affirmative when asked during an interview with Telemundo if the US would "help" people living in "non-democratic regimes" in South America.

"Yes, President Trump's administration has done so and will continue to do so. Not just in Venezuela but certainly in Nicaragua and Cuba," Pompeo said, adding that the Washington is "working diligently to achieve good outcomes for those people."

Comment: The US won't rest with just Venezuela: The War on Venezuela is Built on Lies

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Snakes in Suits

Top German MP: 'Toxic mixture' of Trump, Pence and Bolton endangers Europe's security


RT
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 15:20 UTC
Trump, Pence, and Bolton
© Global Look Press
Donald Trump, Mike Pence and John Bolton - best known for their "erratic and aggressive" traits - are a "toxic mixture" that leaves Europe less secure, a reputable German MP has warned.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government hoped that it could quietly wait for the Trump administration to end, but that was "a bitter illusion," Jurgen Trittin, formerly minister for the environment and now a prominent Green Party MP, argued in an op-ed for Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.

"The sitting US administration combines the erratic destructiveness of Donald Trump with the neoconservative aggression of [Mike] Pence and [John] Bolton."

The German politician proceeded to up the ante: "This is a toxic mixture, it endangers Europe's security."
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Bad Guys

Cold War's good for business: US contractors set to make a 'killing' with new Red Scare


RT
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 12:30 UTC
military industrial complex amazon lockheed martin US deep state
US politicians and media peddling scary stories about Russia and China may have a more pedestrian motive than defending 'American values and way of life' - a return to the halcyon days of the Cold War and the Pentagon gravy train.

If there's one thing mainstream Democrats and Republicans agree upon, it's that Russia and China are the new global threat, ready to pounce at the first sign of a week spot in American defenses to topple the benevolent US dominance of the globe.

If there's another - never on the record, of course - it's that war is good for business. Not actual war, what the Pentagon calls 'kinetic military action', as that would be destructive. The ideal conditions for the political class in Washington is the bygone Cold War, when it could funnel billions of dollars in taxpayer money to defense contractors, with these corporations repaying the largesse with hefty contributions to politicians.
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No Entry

Trump declares he'll veto any attempt to block his 'national emergency' declaration


RT
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 12:30 UTC
Trump declaration
© Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
President Trump announces emergency declaration to build the wall.
US President Donald Trump has said he would veto a Congressional effort to block his recent 'national emergency' declaration and prevent him building a wall along the Mexican border.

After failing to secure the $5.7 billion he'd requested from Congress for his long-promised border wall, the president declared a national emergency last week. The declaration allows Trump to move funding from other parts of government to the wall.

House Democrats introduced a resolution on Friday, aimed at blocking Trump's emergency edict. The resolution has 222 co-sponsors and is all but guaranteed to pass the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.
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Fireball

The War on Venezuela is Built on Lies

John Pilger
johnpilger.com
Thu, 21 Feb 2019 11:08 UTC
In this analysis, John Pilger looks back over the Chavez years in Venezuela, including his own travels with Hugo Chavez, and the current US and European campaign to overthrow Nicolas Maduro in a 'coup by media' and to return Latin America to the 19th and 20th centuries.
maduro trump bolton
Travelling with Hugo Chavez, I soon understood the threat of Venezuela. At a farming co-operative in Lara state, people waited patiently and with good humour in the heat. Jugs of water and melon juice were passed around. A guitar was played; a woman, Katarina, stood and sang with a husky contralto.

"What did her words say?" I asked.

"That we are proud," was the reply.

The applause for her merged with the arrival of Chavez. Under one arm he carried a satchel bursting with books. He wore his big red shirt and greeted people by name, stopping to listen. What struck me was his capacity to listen.

Comment: Besides the pecuniary interest pro-Globalist, liberal-cosmopolitan Westerners have in seeing Venezuela screwed over, there is an important socio-cultural aspect: they're screaming like banshees that Venezuela be dragged back down into the gutter of degradation and domination, the realm they themselves reign over and from which they cannot abide any people raising themselves up from. Hence their brutal suppression of the popular classes in France, for example, where that country's Chavistas are seeking a way up out from the mendacious sewer of lies and deception they're kept in by the oligarchy's parliamentary dictatorship.

See also:

The War On Democracy (English subtitles)

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Arrow Up

'No IMF in Turkey's future, terrorists engineering local elections' - Erdoğan


Hurriyet Daily News
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 10:27 UTC
Erodgan
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will never have a role in the future of the Turkish economy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, also criticizing the main opposition party on the issue.

"When we came to power [in 2002], Turkey's debts stood at $23.5 billion," Erdoğan said Feb. 21 at a local election rally in the western province of Denizli.

"I told the IMF chair in Davos [at the time] 'You are not the prime minister of Turkey, I am. You do not have a job to run Turkey, take your money and leave the rest.' He was sent away [as the IMF chair], your brother here became the president. Now we have no debts to the IMF," Erdoğan said, claiming that main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu would not have such a stance if he was in power.

Comment: Any leader worth their salt by now should know that doing business with the IMF is dancing with the devil:

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Eye 1

Mass grave of 3,500 bodies found outside former Daesh capital is largest yet


Sputnik
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 22:03 UTC
mass grave daesh
© AP Photo/ uncredited
Syrian authorities have uncovered a mass grave of 3,500 people outside the city of Raqqa, the former capital of the Daesh terrorist group. The find is by far the largest such site uncovered as Damascus reestablishes control over the country in the civil war that has raged since 2011.

The bodies lay in both a giant mass grave on a plot of farmland and also in individual graves: many are clothes in the orange suits Daesh robes its victims in before executing them.

"These are individual graves, but behind us, by the trees, are the mass graves of those executed by Daesh," said Asaad Mohammad, a forensic assistant at the site, gesturing to a group of exhumed pits.

Comment: And so a definitive number of civilian causalities of indiscriminate US bombing may never be accurately ascertained: American 'liberation': New report breaks silence on US slaughter in Raqqa, civilian deaths at least 25x higher than admitted

See also:

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Eye 1

'Peacekeepers': US to leave 400 troops in Syria, European allies up to 1,500


Sputnik
Fri, 22 Feb 2019 21:20 UTC
Syria
© AFP 2018 / Delil SOULEIMAN
Earlier, the White House announced that around 200 US soldiers would remain in Syria as a "peacekeeper group" for an undefined period of time following the pull-out of other US military forces.

The US will keep around 200 troops at the al- Tanf base and around 200 more soldiers in north-eastern Syria the peacekeeping, an anonymous US administration official, quoted by Reuters, said. The 200 troops deployed in the northeast of the Arab Republic will be a part of a larger contingent, including the US' European allies. The latter's contribution will number around 800-1,500 soldiers.

The official also noted that both the US and its European allies are still engaged in talks on the creation and participation in maintaining a safe zone in north-eastern Syria.

Comment: It's notable that this is an anonymous source and that they fail to mention a definitive time-line for when this pull out, because thus far the US administration and the Pentagon have contradicted each other's claims, nor do they mention how many private mercenaries they intend to keep there. As of today, the US-led coalition doesn't appear to have ceased the bombing of civilians in the region.

See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: World in Chaos: Anti-Russia Hysteria, Israel Murders Palestinians, US Leaving Syria?

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Robot

All Your Meme Are Belong to Us: EU Plans 'European Firewall' to End Free Internet

D. Rodriguez
Sott.net
Fri, 22 Feb 2019 23:23 UTC
copyright directive
At a time when its legitimacy is being questioned by most Europeans, the EU Commission is certainly not making any friends with its latest version of a 'Copyright Directive' which displays remarkable contempt for the public and the public interest groups whose objections it supposedly took into account when redrafting the copyright reform legislation.

Last week a 'final draft' was agreed by both the German and French governments. The main matter of contention was whether to allow an exemption for small businesses under Article 13. France said no; Germany yes. In the end Germany caved and agreed to amendments which would crush small platforms in favor of US Big Tech. Gee, thanks Merkel.

Incredibly, that was the only point France and Germany had any disagreement over - considering that the rest of Article 13, as well as Article 11, are draconian and entirely miss the ostensible reason of achieving fair protections and compensation for content-creators of copyrighted works. Although supporters claim that the Directive helps content-creators, it doesn't actually use or define that term. The 'rights holder' tends to be large conglomerates (such as the film or music industries) and content-creators who aren't beholden to these entities will suddenly find themselves unable to make a living.

In any case, while the EU Commission states that "applying the principles of better regulation will ensure that measures are evidence-based, well designed and deliver tangible and sustainable benefits for citizens, business and society as a whole" (p.3), they've obviously decided that this doesn't apply to Articles 11 and 13. Eurocrats did conduct research on those measures but cherry-picked only the findings which supported their agenda and ignored others.
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